Woah, look, I live! And rather than work on anything I should be doing, I'm here, writing about Ira Levin's novel The Stepford Wives, which I only recently discovered began life as a book.
And what is this book about, you may ask? Well, its story sticks fairly closely to what I know happens in the film (which is pretty much just the stabbing scene--but of course that scene doesn't happen quite the same way in the book so probably the endings are different), but if you're unfamiliar about that too, the basic rundown is: nuclear family moves to Stepford (the film was actually shot in Connecticut, surprise surprise). All the ladies are weirdly perfect, they even stack their groceries in their shopping carts perfectly neatly, and they're trapped in like an "ideal fifties housewives Leave it to Beaver loop"--in fact, they have no outside interests other than cleaning and caring for the kids. Slowly, over the course of the novel, our protagonist's friends who also recently moved in become bubbleheads as well, and the things they took interest in are even destroyed. For example, a very outgoing friend named Carmelia becomes a bubblehead and the next day her super expensive clay court is getting ripped up. Our protagonist forms a hypothesis that the men are turning their wives into robots.
That's right, robots! And spoiler alert for those who don't know the story or film I'm giving you a ton of warning before I tell you: they are. In the film, the scene I've seen, our protagonist stabs a wife, and without missing a blink she turns around and says something like, "That was rude" and goes on, clearly not bleeding or dying. They introduce the foreshadowing to this about a third on; there's a character--a husband--nicknamed Diz. First of all, I immediately thought of the Disney, uh, "empire", because there's a character in Kingdom Hearts II named Diz. Of course, Diz reveals that he was called that because he worked at Disney, and they don't reveal it until later where he worked at Disney, but I immediately went "it's the hall of presidents, he worked in the hall of presidents", which, of course, is the truth.
And of course this totally took me out of the mood, I cracked up. But to be fair, Disney probably had the most advanced public robotics program in 1972, and if all the men were from NASA or something--first of all the message would be different (invariably more sinister), and the men wouldn't be allowed to continue with their business unchecked. Disney is, believe it or not, the most believable explanation, under analysis, for these going-ons in Stepford.
I didn't mark a lot of notes in the book, but I have a couple of recollections which of course will have no specific page numbers. Sorry. (But it's super short so like, just read it.) But, Ira Levin also wrote Rosemary's Baby, which I'll talk a little bit more about later, because knowing that kind of casts a new light on that film/book (I've just started the book, actually. But I saw the movie a few years ago, so what I'm saying could still be a little accurate!). But one thing that drives me nuts about both works is that--well, our protagonist in this book has some spunk, she seems like a more outgoing character to me. And I guess at the very end, Rosemary is ready to stab her baby, so that's pretty hardcore too. But what drives me nuts about both of them is that while they're trying to be subversive and rebellious, they're still kind of complying: "Hey Rosemary, drink this weird drink that's like bird poop for your kid. Don't read baby books. Cool"--with this book, long after our protagonist (who is named Joanna, by the way) suspects robots are a thing, she still agrees to a recording session thing. This is literally her saying every word in the dictionary. You know: "Tax. Taxation. Taxed. Taxing", etc. Wow, can't see how that might be related to the robot thing, especially after her friend who just got turned into a robot described that exact scenario right before she got transformed. I'm just saying.
The friend who got changed right before her had kids. She actually takes the younger son aside and asks him about it. Though he notes and is somewhat confused by the change, what he says implies that he's okay with it, and in fact prefers the situation with his mother now, even if it's odd for her (the kids are not aware of the process), This makes me wonder what will happen to the kids, though. Even boys can go through some pretty wild rebellious phases, and with complacent robo-moms? It's going to really suck for their dads. And the obvious question would be what about the girls--early on we meet a sixteen-year-old daughter who leaves messes and whatnot, but we never see her again, and she's a pretty flat character. There's a sequel--film only, I believe--called "The Stepford Children", but this leaves a pretty big hole, to me at least. This is the main thing that bothers me in the whole story, because you can't really rationalize that area, like with the Disney thing.
So--Rosemary's Baby, yes? Taking it with Rosemary's Baby, I'd say we can take it with feminist theory. Stepford Wives, the danger of being stuck in a role and silenced. Obviously these women are replaced by complacent robots, but... Rosemary's Baby, I would see that as a continuation of this, perhaps rather than being silenced, being too complacent in a traditional role, and clearly suffering for it. (By the way, between the time I started this post and the time I ended it, I finished that book too--the end of the film is much more effective. The end of the book is too wordy, though it comes to the same result.) We could blame her accepting the baby as just totally melting into the role completely, assuring that she'll remain trapped (and if we take it at face value, be impressed that a mother-baby connection could overcome the whole Antichrist thing). I don't know much about Ira Levin's other books or life, but I'd say his novels are definitely indicative of the times and can be taken as feminist by acting as a warning to not be complacent and submissive--or... I guess even a warning for the other is possible--you know, "don't be outspoken or we will crush you with fifties values and also Satan, who hates independent women too".
So. The book was all right. Not bad, the concept is frightening, if not as "real" for someone in my particular station in life (but I certainly can understand it), but it's too... seventies, almost? There's something about certain books written in the seventies that have their own certain flavor that's almost... dreamy. It feels out of touch the way a dream kind of can be. It's certainly much more frank than modern books. I definitely liked Rosemary's Baby more, but this wasn't bad either. I'm definitely looking forward to watching the film now, in any case.
(And sorry if this post is a little disjointed or more out of touch than usual! If you look at the dates, you wouldn't be surprised if I told you I was rusty... Right?)
No comments:
Post a Comment